In Hong Kong, 35-year-old Matthew Tai has been shifting part of his family’s fortune, built by his father and uncles in real estate, into a string of digital startups.

Tai says he’s invested in crowd-funding platform FundHive, a producer of ultra-thin LCD screens called Organo-Circuit and recruitment website Freeboh. About 15 percent of his $70 million family office is in technology investments, compared with nothing two years ago.

"My family’s traditional business was about the development of land," Tai said. "But that’s history. The new world is in the cyber world.”

The rising ranks of Asian millionaires has pushed assets managed by wealthy clans in the region to more than $17 trillion, according to the consultancy Capgemini. A chunk of that cash is flowing into technology startups in the region and overseas as more digitally-savvy heirs take control of family fortunes. Their hope is that these new investments will generate higher returns and modernize empires that are decades old.